Introduction

During a time when the Weimar Republic was crippled by economic, political, and social distress due to the aftermath of the First World War, a film industry thrived. The Weimar Cinema between 1919 and 1933 provided a creative and experimental outlet whose themes and technology reflected the drastically transforming environment. After World War I, the Treaty of Versailles forced Germany to take full responsibility for all damages of the war, which resulted in a catastrophic economic atmosphere. With unrealistically high debts to repay, inflation was inevitable as the government resorted to printing more currency, further decreasing its value. With the unstable economy paralleling the fractured political and social state of the country, citizens spent their devalued money frivolously, particularly on cinema where they escaped the reality of their immediate world. As factories and industries emerged to repair the struggling economy, the urbanizing landscape created a new class of citizens, the working class. With a majority of the population consisting of members of this stratum, their vitality in the development and functioning of the rising urbanity was significant, thus greatly influencing the themes of the films created during this period. Exemplified in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, the development of a national identity and cinematic style were explored, along with revealing the transformation of the individual within the new social strata. [1]

With global recognition as the enemy in the First World War, the post-war German state struggled to establish a new national identity. Weimar cinema provided the means to establish a new national identity during the period of economic, political, and social distress. Inflation was responsible for the increase of filmmaking as experimentation with the medium was made possible with the funding by the government-owned UFA film studio. While film budgets varied, their themes reflected the political strife and disturbed social nature of its people. Metropolis, a film provided with a large budget, dazzled audiences with its extravagant sets and experimentation with semi-permeable mirror tricks. [1] While the film was visually impressive, it also rang true with social strife in the Republic. Real life tensions between extremists were reflected in the manic worker’s revolt of Metropolis.[2] The nation’s disturbed mental outlook was also illustrated in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, a story told as a flashback of a deranged man in a mental institution. His unhinged mental state reflected the trauma experienced by the veterans of the war. Men who returned from the lost war were stripped of their pride and left physically deformed. The traumatic events experienced, like trench warfare and gassing, contributed to physical and mental illnesses, as expressed in the film through the protagonist’s own disorders.[3] Along the same lines of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Westfront 1918 emphasized the trauma of the war. The film followed a group of German soldiers trying to survive in trenches as attacks disintegrated their psyches and drove them to madness and death wishes. The poster imagery of a lone man struggling in no man’s land among dead bodies, wreckage, and explosions sets the grim tone for the film while illustrating the war’s negative effect on the soldier’s mental state. [4] These themes and their theatrical representations in film reflected the fluctuating identity of the nation’s population.

Although the crippled environment of the new Republic was being represented thematically in film, the creation of a visual style was an important task for the identity of Weimar Cinema in its earliest years. As aforementioned, the restrictions of limited funds resulted in great experimentation with the film medium. During the mid to late 1910s, Expressionism in painting already achieved a status as a national art style, as the works of artists like Oskar Kokoschka represented the devastated state of the nation after World War I. With the Expressionist style already prevalent in painting, it was only a matter of experimentation for that style to be translated into film. Through the use of strong contrasts of light and shadow, horror, and abstraction, Expressionist film emerged to create a sense of heightened reality and the sublime. The filmmaker’s creation of an ethereal atmosphere in films was meant to manipulate the emotions of the audience, creating a sense of terror alongside entertainment[5]. Fritz Lang’s Metropolis uses sublimity when presenting the city in a partially realistic manner; the physical structures found within an actual metropolis are represented with a sense of grandeur. Often referred to as one of the main examples of German Expressionist film, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari also presents an altered and abstracted urban landscape that creates feelings of terror through its representation of angled roofs and buildings. Expressionist film transferred the audience into an alternate reality while highlighting and reflecting the real fears and sensations of the viewership. With this style consisting of such characteristic visual elements that constructed extreme realities, it was a uniquely German style that influenced the aesthetics and themes of later Weimar films.

As industries began to flourish, Berlin transformed from a city recovering from the aftermath of the war to a pulsating urban center. The new sensations, restructuring of the economic and political spheres, and the creation of new social classes became a central focus in several films created in the Weimar Republic, such as Ruttmann’s Berlin: Symphony of a Great City and Lang’s Metropolis. The theme of “the city” takes on the role of presenting the motifs of both dystopias and utopias, along with the decreasing importance of the individual amid the chaotic life of the city. The desire to rise to the level of American modernity is reflected in the mechanization of urban life, a structure and routine lifestyle that developed as a result of this economic restructuring that emphasized a need for speed and production[6].With hundreds of workers repeating these specialized tasks to keep the “greater machine” running, a collective emptiness is demonstrated; the individual no longer matters[7]. They maintain roles of anonymity and become disposable. Contrasting the collective representation of the citizens of Berlin, Siodmak’s People on Sunday represents a break from the chaotic and routine life. The film focuses on a leisurely weekend away from Berlin of four young individuals from greatly differing employment positions. These visually active representations of urbanization in Germany allude to the influence and power of the filmmaker and their utilization of the camera as a tool to create and reflect these representations. The camera’s status as a machine that creates dynamic replications of the current life and visuals of Berlin, rather than a superfluous art form, gave film a wider audience to influence that other art forms would not reach[8].

The metropolis reflected the presence of a new economy and political atmosphere that resulted from the establishment of the Republic and its growth of industries. Instituted after the fall of the Wilhelm Empire, the shift to a democratic government brought about a new array of rights and opportunities for citizens, such as employment with benefits, housing, and educational opportunities. These changes, compared to the long-standing hierarchies of the old monarchy, filled society with fear and anxiety with its change in structure. After World War I, the aristocracy was dislodged from their dominant position while middle class families continued to fear a loss of status and the threat of revolution[9]. These fears and the emergence of the working class, whose individual members became archetypes of the stratum, developed into dominant themes in Weimar Cinema . Murnau’s The Last Laugh brings forth attention to social anxieties through the main character’s identification with Germany’s authoritarian past and the challenging of the old working society of Germany versus the new society. During the Wilhelm Empire, a man was expected to hold the same occupation for a lifetime. The rise of consumerism in the Republic challenged that old stability with the threat of social mobility; employment and one’s social standing fluctuated along with the economy. Lang’s Metropolis also highlights issues pertaining to the social strata, dramatizing the alienation of the working class from the bourgeoisie. His depiction of two completely separate worlds, a beautiful city and a decrepit underworld, provide a clear separation for future social classes.

In addition to the restructuring of the overall social divisions within the Weimar Republic, gender roles also saw a major transformation. Challenging traditional conventions prior to the establishment of the Republic, the sanctity of bourgeoisie marriage became compromised due to the new roles of women as the heads of households and the main source of income. With men off to war, women became increasingly independent as they gained active roles in the work force [10]. Their new roles are reflected by the increased sexuality of female film stars. These temptresses became more and more visible in the global sphere with starring roles in Weimar Film; the sexualization of female characters attracted audiences. Metropolis presented a divided society that was highly influenced by the words of the dual character of Maria, represented as both a saint-like woman and a mechanized, highly sexualized, robot-woman. The beginning of the 1930s and the decline of the Weimar Republic saw the release of Der Bluae Engel, in which a cabaret singer encapsulates the epitome of the vampy women living and working in Germany. The increasing prominence of women in Weimar film reflected the ever-changing landscape of the Republic.

The political, social, and economic changes that followed the creation of the democratic government transformed the entire cultural landscape of the Weimar Republic. With these changes directly affecting the lives of the state’s citizens, the life of the working class and the greater social issues they uncovered became prominent themes in Weimar Cinema. Through greatly varying styles and genres of Weimar film, the changes in social structures and the struggle in establishing a new national identity were revealed.